About

Posing up a storm in Dubai

You could say my passion for travel started the day I was born.

My dad was holding me for the first time, and hanging on the wall in the hospital was a painting of the Swiss Alps. Somewhere my parents went on holiday whilst I was still waiting to be born, and somewhere I was to revisit around the age of 23 whilst inter-railing. I looked up at the painting on my first day in this life, and smiled (so I’m told). My dad took this as a sign that I was here to explore and live as much and as well as possible.

Some 19 years later (being a child, I hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to travel until this point), I went on my first solo trip to east coast USA, working and travelling for three months. Shortly afterwards, I joined my best friend for a week in Shanghai. And a year later, in between studying in London, I traveled to my bucket-list destination at the time, Thailand, for some spontaneous island hopping. This wonderful year, was the tip of the iceberg, and the beginning of my travel diaries.

And thus, my blog ‘Nomadic Platypus’ was born. A broad amalgamation of travel, post university issues and London living. It was pretty cool, well at least the name was. Nomadic was the travel part – Platypus was the ability to adapt to varying environments. If you didn’t get it.

A writer at heart, I trained as a journalist in 2013 and eventually became a journo on a local rag. A year passed, and I realised I could no longer legitimately pass myself off as a journo earning pennies writing headlines about firefighters rescuing pigeons from tall buildings. The world had other ideas, and I decided I needed to earn some real money.

So, as you do, I became a travel agent for four years at a well-know Australian travel company. Luckily for you, I can now safely say I know a thing or two about destinations (even ones I haven’t been to!), airlines, hotels, places to eat, places to avoid – you name it – I’ll tell you about it. Those four years taught me so much about the world and gave me so many crazy travel experiences, good and bad. But as with all travel agents, after a while, the travel bug became too strong.

Journo-turned-travel agent = the perfect travel blogger, right? Well I think so. I have the investigative, critical, honest, sometimes cynical eye of a journo, matched with the passion for places. And now, I’m doing a bit of travelling of my own, based in the ridiculous city of Dubai. The Nomadic Female is me. She’s you. She’s anyone who wishes to take a leap. She’s a 19-year-old girl travelling alone for the first time. She’s a bit out there. She travels with honesty – no filtering or polishing. This is no Lonely Planet guide – just straight up, no frills travel. And most importantly, I aim to inspire other women to live fearlessly and not think too much – something we are all guilty of.

Whether it be about an adventure on my doorstep here in Dubai, or a trip I’m documenting from several years ago, The Nomadic Female is a full, splendid display of my intention to see as much of the world as possible and inspire you to do the same.